Blue Dawn
by P.H. Wise
Summary: Yet Another Halloween Fic. Ethan procures a costume from an altogether unexpected source, and nothing will ever be the same for the Scooby Gang.
1. The Dark Before

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Prologue: The Dark Before...

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel.

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In the alleyway behind the Hyperion, death was everywhere.

Everywhere.

Demon carcasses lined the alleyway from front to back, with so much blood and gore coating the pavement that it could scarcely be recognized for what it was. The demon corpses got thicker and closer together the further into the alleyway one cared to look, until near the very end they were piled up one on top of another so high that there seemed a mountain of the festering dead. The rain fell, and the gore and the blood mixed with rainwater began to flow into the street.

There, beyond the mountain of corpses, at the very end of the alleyway, a well dressed young man of African descent lay dead. Next to him, two piles of ashes had been long since turned to a thin film of mud and washed away by the pounding rain. And at the forefront, where the demonic remains ended and the remnant of the dead Champions began, Illyria lay dead.

It should have ended there; it should have ended with the unnoticed end of the ensouled vampires, the death of a young lawyer with a troubled past but a bright future now cruelly cut short, and the death of Ages of knowledge, and of an endless thirst for conquest.

But that's only the beginning of the story.

In a terrible flash of chaotic energies, a man appeared in the alleyway. His brazen act of undisguised time-traveling set off magical alarms from San Francisco to Moscow, but he cared little for the temporal monitoring of Wolfram and Hart. He would be gone long before anyone came to investigate. He had dark hair and a cruel face, and was dressed well enough, though his nice clothes were now quickly becoming soaked with the blood of demons. This man was Ethan Rayne.

Ethan looked over the bodies with a practiced eye, and shook his head in disappointment. Then his eye fell upon the body Illyria, and he brightened considerably. He strode across the mountain of bodies and hopped down to kneel beside her carcass. Without any sign of emotion, he set to work stripping her body. Once that grim task was completed, paying no heed to the nude corpse at his feet, he held up the mottled leather catsuit that he had stripped from her, and inspected it very carefully. At last, he smiled. "Yes, this will do," he said. "This will do nicely." With the catsuit in hand, he uttered a word of power, and vanished in a swirl of chaotic energies.

The story should have ended in that alleyway. But some people just can't leave well enough alone.

END PROLOGUE

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Author's notes: The devil made me do it. Well, Joehundredaire, actually, but close enough, yes? He made me a challenge, and the plot-bunny grew, and nibbled, and looked so adorable that I finally had to give in. Yes, this is Yet Another Halloween Fic. So far as I know this particular variation has not been done before. If the very thought of what's going on in this fic hurts your brain, well, it hurts mine too. I can only plead insanity. 


	2. Infection

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise 

Part 1 – Infection

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this.

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Dawn Summers should not have existed yet, and as it was, she barely did. The monks who would fashion her human existence to hide her from Glorificus had only just become aware of the first stirrings of the hell-god's power, and were nowhere near actually fashioning a human vessel for The Key. Cause and effect, that's how it works, isn't it? You do a thing, and the consequences ripple forward in time from the moment of action. A little less than three years from now, the monks of the Order of Dagon created Dawn Summers. But time can be a fluid thing when eternal beings are involved; when The Key became human, the consequences rippled not only forward in time, but also back; each moment forward in time that Dawn Summers lived became another moment backwards in time that Dawn Summers had lived. It probably wouldn't have mattered if Janus hadn't become involved through his servant, Ethan Rayne. But when Janus is involved, things tend to get a bit murky. The two-faced god of gates, of doors, of beginnings and of endings had always had an interest in chaos; tonight, he would not be disappointed.

Some people just can't leave well enough alone.

In the October of 1997, the shadow that Dawn Summers cast backwards in time was barely real – not that Dawn had ever really been 'real' - but there it was. On the street outside of Ethan's costume shop, a twelve year old Dawn Summers followed Buffy, Xander, and Willow at a distance, wishing she were anywhere but here.

"Keep up, Dawnie," Buffy called over her shoulder, and Dawn glared murderously at her sister.

It was bad enough having to go trick or treating with Buffy (although she didn't mind the fact that Xander would be there – it was almost worth it for that) instead of with her own friends, but now Dawn found out that her Mom had to stay on late at the Gallery and wouldn't be able to take her costume shopping. That meant she had to go with Buffy. Joy. "Hold your horses," Dawn grumbled as she followed the others into the store. Why did she have to do this with Buffy of all people? Buffy wasn't even cool. She'd just answered that question in her own train of thought, of course, but nobody ever said not-quite-teenagers had to be logical, and knowing why certainly didn't stop the whole thing from being terribly unfair.

The store was full of mothers with their children, come in search of Halloween costumes. As they entered the store, Buffy turned around and looked her sister in the eye. "All right Dawn. Go pick out your costume," she said, and that was all. Her attention returned to her friends, and seeing their easy camaraderie, Dawn couldn't help but feel just a little bit resentful. Buffy and her friends dispersed into the store, and Dawn was alone.

She stood there in the middle of the crowd full of unfamiliar faces, and for a moment she felt a sense of vertigo. She reached out to steady herself on a nearby costume rack, and in so doing, turned her head towards the far corner of the store. A gleam of reddish leather caught her eye. Once she'd recovered, lacking any other inspiration, Dawn made her way towards it. She stopped along the way to look at several costumes, but each time, she inevitably returned the chosen costume to the rack with nary a second glance. Only two outfits actually caught her interest sufficiently that she gave them more than a cursory first glance: a Xena costume, and an ornate looking ceremonial robe-esque costume that she didn't immediately recognize, but she thought looked 'hella cool.' She let out a thoughtful 'hmm,' giving the Xena outfit a good look. Let's call that one 'possibility #1.' She put it aside for the moment and turned to the cool looking ceremonial robe. The tag said it was from some Japanese anime or another, and that soured her to it pretty quickly. Nobody **cool** watched anime. Dawn was nearly set and ready to take the Xena costume to the register when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a second glimpse of light glinting off of reddish leather.

Dawn turned, and her breath caught in her throat.

There, sitting on a stand all its own, a suit of mottled leather armor was on display. At first glance it seemed a dusky red, but a closer look revealed deep blues and blacks interspersed all throughout. Well, really it was more of a catsuit than armor. She blinked, looking more closely at the costume. Why had she thought it was a suit of armor? She found she had no answer. Something about it was incredibly compelling, though – familiar, even – on a level her conscious mind couldn't quite grasp.

An unkind male voice spoke from behind her. "Found something you like?" he asked.

Dawn turned. Oh. It was just the store's owner. Ethan something or other. "What's this costume?" she asked. Were the patterns on the leather actually moving where she'd touched it? No. It had to be her imagination.

Ethan smiled thinly, giving Dawn a calculating look that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. "Ah yes, that. That is an Illyria costume. She was quite the sensation during the early 80's. She was a superhero, you know. Powerful. Unfortunately, her writers died in a tragic accident, and nobody ever picked up the rights after that."

Dawn nodded, and despite the discomfort that Ethan's presence engendered, could not help but stare at the costume. "It's beautiful," she said in a near whisper.

Looking as though he had just arrived at a decision, Ethan nodded. "Yes it is. If I may say so, that is rather a unique costume; it's the only one of its kind. There were others made, of course, but that is the only one that survived the fire at the factory where they were being produced."

"Was that the accident you said happened to Illyria's writers?"

"It's a sad tale," Ethan said. "Did you want to buy it?"

Dawn nodded. "But I don't think I can afford it... and it looks too big."

"Oh, I think you'll be surprised at how well it fits, and I am prepared to make a very generous deal."

Dawn smiled. Maybe her initial reaction to the man had been wrong. He seemed nice. "OK. Let me go get my sister. She's the one with the money."

"Of course," he replied.

A few minutes later, Buffy stood with Dawn in front of the costume, looking utterly nonplused. "You want **that?**" she asked.

"Please?"

"I don't know," Buffy said, shaking her head, "I think Mom would flip out if she saw you wearing something like that. Why don't you wait a few years? Like, till you're thirty. How about this one?" she held up a TinkerBell costume taken from a nearby rack.

Dawn gritted her teeth, thoroughly incensed. "I'm twelve years old! I'm not a little kid anymore, and I want THIS one!" she jabbed a finger at the catsuit.

Buffy sighed. "Fine, whatever, just don't come running to me when Mom grounds you for wearing something like that."

Dawn brightened immediately, her anger forgotten in an instant. "Thanks, Buffy!"

Ethan smiled darkly.

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Suddenly, Dawn realized that her surroundings had utterly changed. Where was she? Why was Buffy's boyfriend (she couldn't remember his name) lying on the ground, broken and bleeding? She stood in the middle of an old warehouse, children in costumes all around, some of them injured. How did she get here...? The pace of her breathing quickened as panic set in, and soon she was in danger of hyperventilating. "Mom?" she called. "Buffy?"

The last thing she remembered was being out with Buffy and Xander and a bunch of little kids, trick or treating out on Revello Drive...

"Hi, honey. I'm home."

That was Buffy's voice! She turned just in time to see Buffy beat the living daylights out of some blonde guy with a length of pipe. When she was done, she twirled the length of pipe in her hands, tossed it aside, and smiled. "It's good to be me."

Dawn stared at her sister. What was going on? What in God's name was going on? Had Buffy really just killed that guy with a length of pipe? "Buffy?" she asked.

Buffy's eyes widened, and she turned towards Dawn. There was an unfamiliar look in Buffy's eyes, and for a moment, Dawn couldn't figure out what it was. Then it occurred to her: it was fear. Buffy was afraid of her?

"Dawnie?" Buffy asked cautiously.

"Buffy," Dawn said, close to tears, "_How did I get here?_" There was outright panic in her voice.

The fear faded from Buffy's eyes, and she gathered Dawn into a fierce hug. The children around them were complaining loudly, but neither sister paid it much mind. "It's going to be OK, Dawn," Buffy said.

Dawn believed her. The sense of panic subsided.

"You ok, Buff?" Xander asked.

Xander! Dawn turned in the direction of his voice, took in his blackening eye, and frowned. Someone had hurt Xander?

"Yeah. But what about..." she trailed off, looking down at her thoroughly beaten boyfriend. "Angel!" she said, and rushed to his side.

Angel groaned faintly, tried to sit up, but found he couldn't.

"Angel, can you move?" Buffy asked.

Angel's eyes opened, and they met Buffy's. "Illyria," he began, "Is she...?"

Buffy nodded. "She's gone. Thank God. The spell was only temporary."

'Illyria? Why were they talking about the character I dressed up as?' Dawn wondered silently.

"Xander, can you get these kids back to where they belong? I need to see to Angel, and to Dawn," Buffy said.

Xander nodded, looked at Dawn, and set to work.

"Buffy," Dawn began, moving over to where her sister was kneeling over Angel's form, "What happened? Why is Angel hurt?" That sense of panic was starting to come back, and when neither Angel nor Buffy said a word, it only got worse.

It was only then that she realized that her costume had changed. It had been too big for her when she'd bought it – she'd had to wear two extra layers of clothing under it just to fit inside the thing – but now it fit her perfectly, and the extra layers of clothing were gone. 'Did I grow, or did it shrink?' Everything felt different. Her center of gravity was off, and Buffy looked... shorter.

Buffy must have noticed Dawn's perplexed look. She took a deep breath. "We've got a lot to talk about, Dawn," she said. "But the important thing is, you're going to be OK. Everything is going to be OK."

Dawn nodded silently, looking at Buffy expectantly. Then she frowned. She felt a little weird.

Buffy grimaced. "Giles tells it so much better than I do. We should get him to do this."

Angel finally managed to sit up, his vampiric healing having kicked in at last. "Why doesn't she remember anything?" he asked.

"Hey, not complaining. Anyways, Dawn," she glanced at Dawn, and trailed off.

Dawn had collapsed to the floor.

"Dawn? DAWN!"

But Buffy's calls seemed like a far distant thing. Her world had faded to a pinprick point of light, and just before that point faded into the darkness of unconsciousness, Dawn heard Buffy cry out, "Call an ambulance!"

END PART ONE

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Author's notes: As for the specifics of what happened to Dawn in the time she can't remember, there will be flashbacks to that throughout the story. I wanted to keep the actual 'Halloween' bits to a minimum, however. We've all seen the episode, and there's absolutely no need to transcribe the whole thing to a fanfic.


	3. Incubation

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Part 2 – Incubation

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this.

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Dawn lay on an uncomfortable bed in a stark white hospital room. The only colour in the room came from her clothing; the nurses had stripped the catsuit from her and reclothed her in a faded blue hospital gown. Her forehead was covered in sweat, her skin was blotchy, and she slept uneasily.

"Mom?" Buffy asked. She stood at Dawn's bedside, speaking into her cell phone. "Something's happened to Dawn, Mom." She paused. "I don't know. The doctors don't know yet." Pause. "We're at the hospital. Room 301. I love you too. I'll see you when you get here." She ended the call and returned the cell phone to her pocket. It hurt her, seeing Dawn like this. Even worse were the ... changes. She wasn't sure how she'd explain this to her mother, but with luck, they'd find a way to reverse what was happening. Giles would think of something. He always did.

Xander had been here earlier. He'd gotten his eye looked at. It was swollen shut now, and had a big bandage covering it, but he'd been here. He'd left about five minutes earlier to see if Willow was all right after her out of body experience last night, and to get Giles. There was nothing she could do now but wait.

She hated waiting. She wanted to do something. It wouldn't be so bad if this was a monster she could fight, but it wasn't. It was just... Dawn.

So she stood, and she watched, and she waited. And life went on as usual all around her.

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When Joyce pulled up at the hospital, her heart was racing, and she knew. She knew it as clearly as she'd heard the fear in Buffy's voice. Her baby girl was dying. Dawn was dying. That knowledge settled in around her heard like an ice-dagger, threatening to freeze her to the core, and a sinking sense of dread encompassed her. She rushed through the front doors in a near panic, very nearly sprinting to the front desk in her haste to get to her daughter.

The man behind the desk was very patient and very kind, but the way he treated this as if it were a very normal state of affairs made her angry. She wanted to slap his mild, pleasant face. Her baby girl was dying!

"Room 301?" he asked. "Up the elevator and then four doors down on the right."

"Thank you," she managed, and then rushed off to the elevator. The ride up seemed interminable, though it really only took a few seconds. The doors opened, and thirty seconds later, she found herself standing in front of the Nurse's station.

"I'm here to visit Dawn Summers," she said, her voice sounding far stronger than she felt.

The nurse paled a little bit, then nodded. "Are you a relative?"

"I'm her mother. Do you know what's wrong with her yet?"

The nurse hesitated.

"Well?"

The nurse looked around, her expression slightly panicked. At last she spotted a nearby doctor. "Doctor Marsh!" The doctor turned. He was a short, unattractive man with a flat nose and eyes that blinked too rarely. "This woman is the mother of the patient in room 301."

Doctor Marsh nodded, and moved to Joyce's side. The nurse immediately relaxed and went back to her desk.

"What's wrong with my daughter?" Joyce asked.

The doctor looked thoughtful. "We're not sure yet. We've run some tests, but..."

"Well, what are her symptoms?"

The doctor hesitated briefly, and then shrugged helplessly. "High fever, excessive sweating, discoloration of the skin, organ failure, and an increased rate of ageing." He shook his head in wonder. "Frankly, Ma'am, I've never seen anything like it. Whatever she has, I'm just glad it's not contagious."

Fear shot through Joyce at that. "... Can I visit her?"

The Doctor nodded. "I don't see any reason why not. But brace yourself, Ma'am. It's bad."

Joyce turned away and walked down the hall. She soon reached the entrance to room 301, and stopped short, a sudden terror seizing her breast. Walking through this door would make it all real. Her normal life would be over, and her life in which her daughter was dying would begin. She took a moment to steel herself, took a deep breath, and then opened the door.

Buffy was there waiting for her, looking at her with fearful eyes. "How is she?" Joyce asked.

Buffy pointed.

Joyce walked into the room, and then she saw her daughter. Her eyes widened. Dawn looked at least four years older than she had when she'd gone out trick or treating. She'd heard the Doctor tell her that Dawn was aging at an accelerated rate, but to hear it from a physician and to see it in person were entirely different experiences. The bottom dropped out from beneath her world. Utterly stunned, she stared at Dawn in shock. After a few seconds, she managed to speak. "What? How?"

At that moment, Giles walked in through the door, with Willow and Xander in tow. "Hello Joyce," Giles said.

"Rupert? What's happening? What's happening to Dawn?"

"We don't know yet," Buffy said. "But I'm sure Giles has some ideas. Right?" she gave Giles a meaningful look.

Xander shut the door.

"Joyce, perhaps it would be better if you sat down for this..."

A few minutes later, when the explanation was done, Joyce finally spoke. "So what you're saying is... Dawn is sick because she was possessed by her Halloween costume which, far from the 80's superhero costume she claimed it was, was actually a costume of some kind of demon?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Xander said with a completely straight face.

Buffy, Willow, and Giles each nodded.

"And Buffy's a Vampire Slayer?"

More nods.

Joyce put a hand to her forehead. "This is insane."

Buffy grimaced, looked at her mom for a minute, and then, with a small amount of effort, tore a metal railing off of the side of Dawn's bed , bent it into a figure eight, and handed it to Joyce.

Joyce stared at the twisted metal in shock, and then dropped it to the floor with a heavy thud. She took a step back from Buffy. "What...?" she stared at her daughter. "I knew you were hiding things from me, but I never dreamed it was something like this!"

Buffy had the decency to look guilty at that. "I wanted to tell you..."

"But I just wouldn't understand?"

Buffy met her mother's gaze levelly. "But the last time I did, you and Dad put me in an asylum."

Joyce winced. "We thought that..."

Buffy interrupted her. "You were wrong."

"We had no way of knowing..."

Buffy cut her off again. "You could have just opened your eyes. Even in LA, the signs were there, but here in Sunnydale, you'd have to be blind to have missed them. How many people have died because of 'Gangs on PCP' or from accidental exsanguination following an 'accident with a barbeque fork in the neck?' Remember the wild animals that attacked Principle Flutie? School kids possessed by hyena spirits. Gangs on PCP at Parent/Teacher night? Vampires. That creepy stalker who was following you around back in LA? Demon. I had to fight him."

Joyce stared at her daughter, her horror mixed in equal parts with pride. "All this time...?" she asked. She shook her head. She was getting away from what was really important here. "What's going to happen to Dawn? She's... aging."

She glanced at her youngest, and shuddered. In the time between her arrival and now, Dawn had aged another two years. She now appeared to be eighteen and in the full bloom of womanhood. If the full bloom of womanhood was sweaty and blotchy, that is. As she watched, faint lines of blue pigmentation traced their way across Dawn's exposed flesh. Her jaw dropped open slightly.

"I don't know," Buffy replied, "But we're going to find out. And we're going to stop it."

And with that, Giles deposited a large pile of musty old books on the room's table, the Scoobies each pulled up a chair, and they started reading, leaving Joyce Summers standing there in a state of shock.

END PART TWO

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OK then. This part is done. The next one is probably going to be the biggest, and if all goes well, the final part. I'm aiming for a total of thirty pages here, so the next will probably be somewhere in the area of twenty. Short story length. I'm probably going to have to go back and revise this all before I'm done, but I keep getting people telling me to post, so here it is.


	4. Labour Pains

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Part 3 – Labour Pains

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this.

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She stood in the midst of a vast courtyard. Weird towers formed of opaline spiraled endlessly upwards all around her, their geometry defying her eye's ability to follow. The angles were wrong in a way that she couldn't define. The ground was utterly dry and crisscrossed with cracks. Above her, an endless maelstrom hung suspended where the stars should have been. Here, Dawn Summers was alone.

Almost alone.

Even as she stood beneath the psychic remains of Illyria's cyclopean and many-columned fortress, gazing up at the whirling sky, Dawn knew that she was not alone. She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and she turned towards it.

There.

A strange little man who hadn't been there an instant before shook his head sadly. "These won't protect you anymore," he said, holding up a platter of green cheese.

With a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, he was gone.

Dawn blinked repeatedly, trying to get rid of the lightning's afterimage. This place, whatever it was, was seriously wigging her out. "Hello?" she called, "Is anybody here?" and immediately she regretted it. The sound echoed strangely, bouncing off of unexpected places, and a sense of attention swirled around her awareness. She'd caught something's attention. Although it wasn't cold, she shivered.

'OK,' she thought, 'Don't panic, Dawn. Don't panic. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. I just have to wake up, and I'll be OK.' She pinched herself to no avail. She blinked. Her body didn't look right, and her center of balance was off. When did... her eyes widened. "When did I grow breasts?" she wondered aloud. And it was so: even here, she was no longer twelve, but now for all that she could tell at least a full twenty years old. She went into full blown panic mode.

A kindly female voice with a Texan accent spoke, then, "You've got bigger things to worry 'bout than what's happened to your body, Dawn."

Dawn's heart nearly rose up into her throat. She jumped into the air, let out a very undignified shriek, and then whirled around to face the source of the voice.

A lovely young woman, twenty-something, perhaps, stepped out of one of the non-Euclidian towers, seeming to emerge directly from the wall. She had long dark hair, big brown eyes, and was as naked as the day she was born. "'Course," she went on, "What's happenin' to your body is the thing you should be worryin' about, but I meant it in a different sense. You being older ain't the problem. You being **prepared** is."

"Who," Dawn trailed off, unsure of what to make of the sight of this woman. "Who are you?" she managed, once she had recovered from her surprise.

The woman smiled sadly. "I'm Fred."

"Fred?"

Fred nodded. "At least, I was. I'm what's left of her."

A cold fear began to grow in Dawn's heart. "What do you mean?"

"You know. The part that's still..." she paused, looking for the right word, "Undigested."

That answer certainly didn't do much for Dawn's state of mind. "This is impossible," she whispered.

"I thought so too, back when I could say 'I' without saying it through Her," Fred replied, her smile growing sadder, fading towards a frown. "I'm sorry, Dawn. This never should'a happened to you. I'm glad I at least got the chance to meet y'all, though, before the end."

Terror seized her then, and for a moment, she saw herself as she was; vast channels of dark power coursing through her, hollowing her out, searing her very soul everywhere they touched.

Dawn began to scream.

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Buffy looked up from the book she was looking through and shuddered. Dawn had aged again. She didn't understand why this was happening. Her sister, her twelve year old little sister, was lying in that bed looking for all the world like she was twenty years old. They'd been researching this for the past two hours. Visiting hours were over now, but the nurses seemed content to let them be. Nobody really liked to talk about what had happened at the hospital the previous year, but ever since then, the staff had afforded Buffy and her friends a healthy amount of preferential treatment.

This hadn't been how she'd wanted her mom to find out about her being the Slayer. Not by a long shot. But it was actually sort of comforting to know that she didn't need to keep it a secret any longer. Comforting in that 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' sort of way that big revelations tend to be immediately after they've been made, that is. She kept sneaking surreptitious glances at her mother, but none of them did any good. She couldn't figure out what her mom was thinking. She was just... sitting there, paging through the books with the rest of them, a shocked expression on her face.

Her mom was well on her way towards becoming a Scooby. ... Now there was a scary thought. Mom, a Scooby? No way. She couldn't become involved in all this, this mess that had become her life. She was too normal. She was... Mom.

A knock on the door derailed her train of thought. A moment later, Jenny Calendar walked into the room, a bundle of papers in hand.

"I found it," she said as she entered, shuffling through the papers as she walked. "It took some doing, but I found it."

Giles looked relieved at that, but Buffy just felt confused. "So, what's the what?" she asked.

Giles glanced towards Buffy. "I asked Jenny to find an incantation to place a person in a kind of magical stasis. If it works, it should buy us some time to find a more permanent solution."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "What, so you're just gonna put my sister on ice indefinitely?" Most of her was horrified at the thought. A small but loud part of her wondered why they would ever want to take Dawn out of stasis. She tried very hard to ignore that thought, and grew angry with herself for thinking it, which did nothing to improve her mood.

Giles shook his head. "No, of course not. The spell doesn't work that way. It will, however, put her 'on ice' as you said for a day, perhaps two. In this situation, that might be the difference between saving her life and..." he trailed off uncomfortably.

"Watching her die?" Joyce asked quietly.

Buffy flinched visibly at that. "Dawn is not going to die," she said, her voice filled with vehemence.

Giles didn't reply, and neither did anyone else.

"Honey," Joyce began.

Buffy didn't give her a chance to get any further than that. "NO," she said, sounding just shy of hysteria, "We are not going to let Dawn die just because she happened to pick a bad costume. We are not going to let that happen."

Xander nodded faintly. "'Course, Buff. It might be hard to see a solution right now, but we'll find one."

"Right," Willow chimed in. "We always do. 'Cause, you know, it's what we do."

Joyce said nothing, but just looked at her daughter sadly.

Giles stood up suddenly, and all eyes went to him expectantly. Had he found something? ... He collected his coat and began to put it on.

"Giles?" Buffy asked.

"I may have a lead, but I need the rest of you to stay here and continue looking through the books. I take it you can cast the spell without me?"

Jenny nodded, putting her hand on his shoulder. "It shouldn't be a problem. I'll have Willow help me."

Willow brightened visibly at that.

Giles nodded curtly, and departed.

As Willow and Jenny prepared to cast the spell, Buffy steadfastly refused to meet her mother's gaze. She'd already called Angel earlier, and he'd said he'd look into it. If they didn't find something, he would. Dawn was not going to die.

She wouldn't let her die.

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Ethan's costume shop stood abandoned now, but that would only stop Giles for so long. He had come prepared for this. He hadn't wanted to have to resort to this, but at this point, what was another black mark on his soul, especially if it saved the life of an innocent? Grimacing slightly, Giles produced a small talisman and chanted briefly.

The talisman began to glow.

If a sorcerer who had not known Ethan or his methods had tried this, they would likely had gotten nothing at all. For Giles, however... within a few minutes, he had pinpointed Ethan's precise location within Sunnydale, and was walking at a brisk pace in that direction.

He found Ethan in a ratty little hotel room on the bad side of town. He burst through the door and immediately used his talisman to deflect a bolt of fire into the wall.

Ethan was ready for him, it seemed.

Giles chanted a few phrases in Latin, strengthening his connection with the talisman, and moved in. He would show that miserable git exactly why they'd called him 'Ripper' in his misguided youth.

Giles ducked beneath another bolt of fire, and then thrust forth his right hand, clenching the talisman in his left. Ethan's next fire bolt struck Giles's outstretched hand, coalesced into a ball, and then rebounded with a terrific flash. Ethan dove for cover, barely managing to get out of the way before the tiny fireball splashed violently against the far wall of the hotel room, leaving a black spot and the smell of burnt plaster in its wake. Neither man spoke except for what was needed to cast their spells as the fight continued.

Ethan's next attack was more subtle. Even as Giles strode forward, he felt as though every movement he made required more and more effort; Ethan's will was set against his own, and though he could not directly control his movements with this particular spell, he could make controlling his own movements a living hell. Certainly enough so that he would not stand a chance for the rest of their duel.

Or would have, had he not brought the talisman with him. Calling upon the additional power it brought to his disposal, he shattered Ethan's spell, and the backlash of magical power sent Ethan flying into the far wall.

Two minutes later, Ethan was bound hand and foot and lying face down on the carpet. Giles shoved the bed aside to clear some space for the work that was ahead.

At last, Giles spoke to his old friend. "Hello, Ethan," he said.

"Rupert," Ethan replied, sounding as casual as he could manage while breathing heavily and bleeding from his nose and ears. "Something the matter? You're usually a bit more polite when you come to visit me."

Giles reached up and slowly unscrewed the light bulb from its socket overhead. He considered the bulb for a few moments. "Yes, quite," he replied, "But I'm afraid that when innocent lives are in danger, I tend to get a bit more testy than I might otherwise."

Giles smashed the bulb against a wooden nightstand that lay against the wall and held up the jagged remains. "I said earlier that if you broke the spell, you'd get to live. I'm afraid I may have exaggerated that a bit. That was, after all, before I'd learned of some of the aftereffects of one of the costumes you sold that night." He seized Ethan by the throat with his free hand. "We're going to have a little talk about that, Ethan."

Ethan grinned. "Are we? I think you're going to bluster, and I'm going to laugh at you."

Giles went to work.

END PART THREE

------------------------

I know I said that this one would probably be the last one, but my inspiration for this story is apparently unwilling to come to me in anything but bite-sized chunks, hence the annoyingly small chapters. Ah well. At least it's coming.


	5. Rebirth, part 1

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Part 4 – Rebirth, Part 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this. This chapter contains three sentences lifted from the episode of Angel entitled 'Judgement.'

----------------

Angel strode down the night-shrouded sidewalk like a man moving with a purpose, his long coat-tails trailing out behind him in the wind of his passage. He didn't know what was happening to Dawn any more than any of the others did, but he had promised Buffy that he would help, and help he would; to that end, he had come here, to Los Angeles. He'd heard about his destination from Willy, and he hadn't even had to beat it out of him. Willy hadn't been very clear on the details, but apparently, there was a demon in LA who could gain insight into the future. If you sang Karaoke for him. ... Yeah. So maybe he was grasping at straws, but it was all he had at the moment, and he'd be damned before he fail the girl he loved by not investigating every possible lead in this situation. Unbidden, the memories of All Hallows Eve rose to the forefront of his mind.

**FLASH**

There they stood in the warehouse, with Buffy the Noblewoman cowering behind him, Soldier-Xander and Cordelia at his side, and a very ghostly Willow close at hand. There they stood, surrounded by Spike's gang, newly reinforced by the children-cum-demons. Snarling, hissing, spluttering, the demon-children closed the circle around them even as Spike laughed.

"Sir Knight, save me!" NobleBuffy shrieked dramatically.

Then the vampires charged, with the demon-children close behind. The report of Soldier-Xander's gun filled the warehouse, and a vampire was blasted off his feet by the sheer concussive force of being struck by a dozen bullets. He'd get back up soon enough, but was at least out of the fray for a good ten seconds. Willow couldn't do much, but she could at least distract their enemies, and distract them she did, blocking their line of sight, getting between them and her friends, making the demons and vampires swing wildly instead of striking more precise, more telling blows. A demon-child leaped at Angel, and he caught the tiny body in mid-leap and threw it into four of its fellows before producing a stake from his long coat and driving it through the ribcage and into the heart of a vampire who had made the same animalistic mistake of leaping at a prepared foe. The vamp exploded into a cloud of dust.

Nearby, Cordelia, though completely untrained, was doing her level best to fight off three of the demon-children, and was not doing a bad job of it. Here, confronted with a life-or-death situation, and despite a total lack of combat training, she was fighting for her life, and not as one terrified, but as one determined to win. In that moment, it felt right, fighting at Cordelia's side. Angel could not help but admire her. The moment passed, and he lost sight of her in the melee.

After about thirty seconds of combat, it became apparent that against all odds, they were winning. They were beating back the vampires, and they keeping the demon-children both at bay and for the most part unharmed. And then Angel was face to face with Spike himself. The sight of the other filled each of them with an animalistic rage that overwhelmed their reason, and they each pounced at the other.

In the middle of his pounce, a red-gloved hand seized Angel by the leg and threw him into a nearby crate. The crate shattered on impact, and dozens of large wooden shards pierced his body, thankfully missing his heart. All combat ceased as both sides turned and stared at the new-comer in disbelief.

Illyria had arrived. There she stood, resplendent in her mottled red leather catsuit, with her blue-streaked hair and frozen blue eyes. "How dare you," she said, her eyes narrowing as she glared at Angel.

Angel managed to get back to his feet and glared right back. Whatever Dawn had turned into was incredibly bad news and frighteningly strong.

Spike grinned. "You looking to join the party, Blue?" he asked.

Illyria paid him little notice. "How dare you seek to bring harm to my pet! Spike is mine," she said, moving forward. Spike frowned at that. "Your kingdom is far from here, Angel," she said, "You overstep your authority."

Angel was confused. "What are you talking about?"

She tilted her head to the side, and it reminded him of nothing so much as a lizard or a bird. "But you died. You both died. How can you be alive? No matter. You have attempted to harm my pet, and your orders were directly responsible for the death of my guide. In my time, you would have publicly flayed the flesh from your own body to repay this insult. Now, I shall have to find my satisfaction more directly."

"I don't think so, lady," Soldier-Xander said, raising his rifle.

"Don't!" Willow yelled. "That's Dawn! Don't shoot her!"

Soldier-Xander hesitated, and then charged at Illyria, raising his rifle to strike her with it.

She caught the rifle with one hand and crushed the barrel. Soldier-Xander released the rifle and struck her in the face with all the strength in his body... and she didn't so much as budge.

After a moment, she deigned to look him in the eye, and the Soldier's eyes widened in horror. "Is this all your anger amounts to, human?" she asked, and then punched him in the face.

Xander went down.

NobleBuffy started screaming, and Willow stared at Illyria wide-eyed.

**FLASH**

Angel grimaced, pushing himself out of the memory. He didn't remember sending anyone named Wesley on a suicide mission. For that matter, he didn't recall having met anyone named Wesley in the past few years. Wolfram and Hart was a name he was only distantly familiar with. As far as he knew, they were some sort lawyers for demons, vampires, and other monsters. Angelus had never been one to make use of their services. All the while as she beat him, Illyria had accused him of things that... he hadn't actually done. Or hadn't done yet. Now there was a disturbing thought. But no, that was impossible. Shaking his head, he banished these concerns from his mind; he had reached his destination. Here was Caritas.

--------------------

"Tell me what you've done, Ethan," Giles said calmly, looking down unflinchingly upon what was left of the chaos mage after two hours of torture. It was hard to believe that the bloody mess that lay before him had once been a man, and that he had made this transition because of Giles's own actions, but there it was. A small part of Rupert Giles was horrified by what he had done and was doing, but it was a part that he ruthlessly squashed.

Coughing wetly, Ethan looked up at Giles, smiling as best he could with a face that was for the most part ruined. "I wanted to know how far you would go, mate. I never dared dream it would be this far."

"My patience is wearing thin," Giles said warningly.

"Right. Here's the dark of it: there's nothing you can do. Nothing at all."

Giles's expression darkened. "Start at the beginning."

So Ethan did. He told his old friend about his little jaunt forward in time, of the guidance Janus had given him to even make it possible, of finding the fallen Old One, and of taking her clothing back with him to be a part of his new costume shop. "Right about now, the Old One should be eating her from the inside out," Ethan said, grinning widely, "Hollowing her out to make her fit for habitation. It won't be much longer before she dies, and worse. This sort of thing is final, you know. Eternal, as it were. When the Old One is done preparing the body, that poor stupid girl's soul will be consumed. Forever."

Giles stared down at Ethan disbelievingly. Was it even possible to destroy a soul? Nothing he had ever heard of could do so, but... an Old One. Maybe. If anything could destroy a soul, an Old One could.

Ethan began to laugh. "You can't help her, but you could kill her before she finishes transforming. You won't save the girl, but you might be able to prevent the Old One from walking the Earth again."

Giles felt a cold hatred rising up within his chest, and his lip curled faintly as he raised the bloody shattered light bulb a final time. "Goodbye, Ethan," he said.

Ethan's smile did not fade. "Now there's the Ripper I remember," he whispered.

Giles slit Ethan's throat and left him to die.

-----------------

Illyria's final words to him, just before the spell had ended, rang loudly in Angel's ears as he walked down the steps into Caritas. "Just as you failed to save Winifred Burkle, so too will you fail to save this shell." No. He would find a way.

Caritas was a strange place; it was like an upscale version of Willy's place, and with a correspondingly higher quality of clientele. As higher quality as things got with demons, anyways. The bartender – a green-skinned demon named Lorne with tiny horns who wore an unbelievably loud, garish outfit – was serving a humanish-looking demon a drink. The place was pretty well packed, the lighting subdued, and a creature that resembled nothing so much as a cross between a human and an excessively wrinkled puppy was up on stage singing 'Mandy.'

Angel smiled faintly and moved towards the bar.

Lorne looked up as Angel approached. "Love the coat. It's all about the coat. Welcome to Caritas. You know what that means?"

"It's Latin for mercy."

Lorne smiled. "Smart and cute. How about gracing us with a number once Clem is through?"

Angel's smile faded away.

"Aaah," Lorne said, "I see. Well, you just sit there and pluck up your courage. Maybe have a drink or two and see where it gets you."

Angel nodded. "Thanks." He took a seat at the bar and turned to watch the demon.

"Oh Mandy," the demon sang, "Well you came and you gave without taking, but I sent you away, oh Mandy."

Angel found himself humming along, and Lorne stopped what he was doing and looked straight at the ensouled vampire. "Oh, oh no," Lorne said, a horrified expression on his face.

Angel looked to the green-skinned demon. "Something wrong?" he asked.

Lorne sighed. "I'm so sorry. You're Angel, right?"

Angel nodded.

"It won't help. You can't save her."

Angel was silent for a long moment. At last he said, "I have to try."

Lorne nodded. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you. You might be able to get some more information out of the guy who's trying to sneak past you and out the door."

Angel turned, and Whistler froze in his tracks.

"Ah, hey kid!" the balance demon said brightly.

Angel stepped towards him, and Whistler swallowed nervously.

"Why don't we just step outside," Angel said threateningly.

"Oh hell no. You think I'm stupid enough to leave Sanctuary when I've got someone like you angry at me?" Whistler replied.

Angel shrugged, seized Whistler by his coat, and dragged him out of the bar, taking care not to do any violence to his person before they were outside. Once on the street, Angel kicked the Messenger hard, knocking him to the ground.

"Don't go down this path, Angel," Whistler said, clutching at his side where he'd been kicked.

"So you know what's going on, huh? Why doesn't that surprise me."

"This isn't your destiny. You're supposed to be a Champion."

Angel glared at Whistler. "To hell with Champions. I want to talk to your bosses, right now. The little sister of the girl I love is dying. Some monster called Illyria violated her. It crawled down inside her and took her body over, and when it left, it left a part of itself behind, and now it's eating her alive from the inside. What I want to know is: what are you going to do about it?"

Whistler said nothing, but did at least have the decency to look guilty.

"Are you going to make me beat it out of you?" Angel asked. "Because I can get really creative when I need to interrogate someone. You're going to explain to me why the Powers are sitting on their asses when an innocent little girl is dying."

"... You've got the wrong idea about the Powers, Champion," Whistler said, shaking his head. "They aren't gods or angels. They're more interested in stalemate than they are in a victory for good."

Angel's expression darkened. "I see. So if the balance swung the other way...?"

"They'd be helping evil against the angels. Don't get me wrong, you Champions of Good are great guys, and I think we'd all be happier if your side won, but it's in the Powers' best interest for the world to simply continue as it is, and Illyria's rebirth is going to help with that, even if it makes a lot of people suffer."

Enraged, Angel kicked Whistler again and again. Finally, after about twelve kicks, Whistler stopped moving, quite thoroughly unconscious. His fury was spent. Had he really come this far only to fail? Angel sank to his knees, and a single tear flowed down his cheek. "No," he whispered, "It's not going to happen like this. I won't let it happen."

Leaving Whistler unconscious on the street, Angel rose to his feet and walked off into the night, a desperate plan forming in his mind.

END PART 4


	6. Rebirth, part 2

Behold the suffering unspeakable in death  
And the abominations of the earth;  
Its desolation turns,  
And now there is no life in her ...

- Behold A Pale Horse, Saviour Machine

---------------

It all seemed so empty. So trivial. Vapid little school children played at being adults while death and horror lay in wait just around the corner. A group of giggling stoners was smoking in the bushes. Three jocks went by, laughing too loudly over some rude joke told by one of their number. A nerd walked alone through the halls, surrounded by strangers. Buffy Summers, disheveled and distressed, walked through the school hallway in a daze.

There had been no change in Dawn's condition. Almost a day now had passed since the spell had been cast to put her in a kind of magical stasis, and they had nothing whatever to show for it. No new leads, no clues, no prophecies. Angel hadn't returned yet. Giles had, and in a foul mood. Briefly, Buffy wondered what his problem was, but did not have the energy to continue the line of thought. Though the spell had bought them a short reprieve, Dawn was still dying, and now, for the first time, Buffy was beginning to doubt that they would be able to save her.

Buffy went on like that for most of the day, sleepwalking through her classes, going through the motions but not investing any of her self into her activities. She'd wanted to stay home from school entirely, but her mother wouldn't hear of it. Even with Dawn's life in the balance, the rest of the world went on.

She hated it for that, a little bit.

"Hey Buffy," Cordelia said as she rounded the corner, with a gaggle of Cordettes in tow. Buffy felt more than she saw Cordy sizing her up. A slight smile graced the girl's lips as she took in Buffy's disheveled appearance, and her tone turned mean. "This is a new look for you. Oh wait, it isn't. Let me guess, you're channeling your inner street urchin again?"

Anger rose up within her, and Buffy directed a withering glare at Cordelia; not simply a nasty look, but a look of pure, deadly fury. She struck back at Cordy with the most effective weapon that she had in her arsenal: the pure, unvarnished truth. "Cordelia," she said, her voice a hollow, dead thing, "Right now, my sister is lying in a hospital bed, dying."

Cordelia reacted as if struck, and the Cordettes exchanged guilty looks. Horrified, Cordelia spoke again, this time in a much softer, apologetic voice. "I didn't know..."

"Of course you didn't," Buffy said dismissively, "Why would you pay attention to anyone that wasn't yourself?" And then she turned and walked away, heading down the hall towards her last class of the day, leaving Cordelia standing there in the hallway, shocked and horrified.

----------------

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Part 5 – Rebirth, Part 2

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this.

----------------

Dawn Summers awoke to the breeze fluttering through the curtains, and afternoon sunlight on her face. For a few minutes she just lay there, taking in the feeling of the cool breeze and warm sunlight like the embrace of an old friend. At last, she opened her eyes, and was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. A hospital room. She grimaced. She might not hate hospitals like Buffy did, but nobody liked to wake up in one.

She sat up and glanced about. Xander lay asleep with his face planted sideways on a table in the corner of the room, a pile of books gathered around him. One of his eyes was covered with a large bandage. There were other chairs at the table, but Xander was alone, and there was a lingering smell of... Dawn frowned. She wasn't sure why, but the smell reminded her of a mixture of fear, fading hope, and growing despair. Why would a smell remind her of that? It was a vaguely nauseating smell besides... no. She had to be imagining things. Grimacing, she tugged the IV out of her arm and climbed out of bed. A sudden draft reminded her that she was clad in naught but a hospital gown; Dawn shivered and glanced about for something suitable to wear. There. On the chair by the bed, some clothing had been laid out, and folded so neatly that it could only have been her mother who had done it. She didn't recognize the outfit. She checked the tags and frowned. It was several sizes too big for her. Still, it was better than nothing. She pulled the privacy curtain closed around her bed and quickly dressed herself; much to her surprise, the clothes fit quite well. Her body was... fear grew within her. That had been a dream, hadn't it? ... Hadn't it?

Dawn opened the privacy curtain, smiled fondly at the sleeping Xander, and then left, saying not a word.

She barely made it out of the hospital before she started sweating intensely. She caught a view of her reflection in the glass doors as she left the building. The sight nearly broke her: her twelve year old self was long gone. Entire years of her life had been stolen. The face that looked back at her in the reflective doors was the face of a twenty-something. She might have been beautiful in other circumstances, but now she was ill and she looked it. She was sweating visibly, her face was pale, her skin blotchy, and streaks of strange blue pigmentation ran across her skin. And for all the awful that she looked, she felt worse.

Dawn left the hospital, following the westering sun.

She walked aimlessly for a time, not caring where she went as long as it took her away from the reality of her situation. What she wanted was an escape, but there was none to be had. Her head throbbed, and the stench of human emotions was thick around her. Why hadn't she ever noticed that smell before? Ugh. It made her want to vomit.

At last, Dawn found herself in a small park, her feet striking beads of water off the grass as she went. It wasn't morning, but the grass had recently been watered. The cool, wet grass felt good against her feet, and the heat of the mid-day sun warmed the rest of her in pleasant contrast. She walked on until she found herself beneath a grand old oak, leaf bladed, gnarled and many-limbed. She let herself fall over backwards, and the grass cushioned her fall. There, in the shade of the tree, she stared up at the leaves swaying in the breeze against the clear blue sky, and felt a horrible sense of loss mixed with longing.

"Am I really going to lose all this?" she asked the sky. "Is this really happening?"

The sky did not answer, and the distant buzz of many-winged things floated on the breeze. A dragonfly flew overhead, and she watched it pass. Life went on. Her head throbbed, and life went on. It was as beautiful a day as she had ever seen; it was a lazy day; a day for napping in the shade, lulled to slumber by the smell of trees, by the gentle breeze, and warm sun, and buzzing wings.

She dozed off.

Some time later, a shadow passed over her, and she opened her eyes. Buffy was standing over her, smiling sadly.

Dawn smiled.

"You gave us all a big scare, Dawnie," Buffy said, but she wasn't angry.

"I know," Dawn said, sounding terribly, terribly old. "Do you ever wonder what it's like to die, Buffy?" she asked.

Buffy didn't answer.

"I've been thinking about that a lot, lately. Do you think it hurts?"

"No," Buffy said, her voice a near whisper, "I don't think it hurts."

"I think it might be like being born. It hurts worse and worse, and then you're out. I feel like I'm being born..." Dawn met Buffy's gaze. "Your fear is really rank."

Buffy looked nonplused. After a moment, she shook her head. "You're not going to die, Dawn. We might have something. Miss Calendar thinks she might have found a spell that can exorcise the thing that's inside you..."

"Illyria," Dawn said. "Her name is Illyria."

"... Illyria, right," Buffy replied. Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"

"It was on the costume," Dawn said dismissively," But besides that, she told me."

"Who?"

"The other girl. Fred."

Now growing truly afraid for her sister, Buffy reached down to lift Dawn back onto her feet. "Come on, Dawn. We have to get back to the hospital. Willow and Miss Calendar are going to cast their spell, and everything's going to be OK."

With Buffy's help, Dawn rose to her feet. She smiled beatifically. "I love you, Buffy," she said. Then her vision went dark, she collapsed in Buffy's arms, and it was night.

------------------------

Buffy carried Dawn back to the hospital as quickly as she was able, and many people she passed shook their heads and convinced themselves that what they'd just seen couldn't possibly have been real. Young women cannot outrun cars – not even in a 25 MPH zone. Angel was there waiting for her at the entrance to the hospital. He took Dawn from her arms and carried her the rest of the way up to her room, and as they went, he spoke. He told Buffy of what had transpired. Of their abandonment by the Powers, and of the Powers' true nature.

Buffy clenched her fist so hard that it began to bleed.

"I think I have an idea. Something that could save her. She'll be changed, but she'll still be Dawn. You won't like it, though.""

"I'm listening," Buffy replied. They entered the elevator, and she pushed the button for their floor.

"I turn her. Drain her, and then sire her as a vampire."

Buffy's jaw dropped open and she stared at Angel disbelievingly. "How can you even suggest that?" she asked, growing furious very quickly, and now tempted to snatch her sister back from Angel's arms.

Angel shook his head. "I wouldn't suggest it if I thought there was any other way to save her. But the gypsies cursed me with a soul. They could probably do the same for her. And then she'd be Dawn, just..."

"On a blood diet and strictly a night person?"

Angel nodded. "It should work, but it's your decision."

They reached their floor, and carried Dawn out of the elevator. Buffy shook her head. "I'm not going to even consider that kind of option when we've got another choice..."

Angel nodded, and together, they entered the hospital room.

--------------------

Dawn woke up an hour after her return to the hospital, and smiled weakly at her Mom's tear streaked face. "Hi Mom," she whispered.

Joyce smiled, and she and her daughter began the last talk that they would ever have. The whole gang was back, Buffy, Mom, Giles, Willow, Xander, even Miss Calendar. A magic circle had been drawn around the bed, and the room was lit with candles. Their preparations were nearly complete.

Even as Joyce and Dawn spoke to one another, Cordelia walked into the room, a bouquet of flowers in hand. Buffy looked up in surprise as the other girl entered. "Cordelia?" she asked.

"Hi Buffy," Cordelia replied, smiling nervously. "I brought some flowers for your sister," she held up a little card, "And a get well card. I wanted to apologize for what I said..."

Buffy smiled, took the flowers and the card, and placed them on Dawn's bed-stand. She opened her mouth to say something – perhaps to thank Cordelia – but at that moment, the monitors that Dawn was connected to began to beep wildly.

Dawn shuddered, visibly tensing. "Oh God," she muttered, "It's starting. She's almost..." she stopped talking abruptly, and her body began to convulse as though in the throes of a seizure.

"Giles!" Buffy yelled, "We have to do this now!"

Giles looked to Miss Calendar and Willow. "Jenny? Are we ready?"

Jenny nodded. "It's now or never," she said. Each holding a candle, they two began to chant.

Drawn by the wildly fluctuating vital signs, two nurses and a doctor rushed into the room and stopped short as they took in the scene. "What the hell is going on here?" one of them demanded.

Xander and Giles strode forward and intercepted them, pushing them back to the door.

"What are you... that girl is dying! What are you doing? We have to get to her!"

Willow and Jenny continued chanting, and the temperature reading on one of the monitors rose dramatically. Dawn was sweating horribly, and Joyce put a hand to her forehead.

"She's burning up," Joyce whispered. "Hold on. Hold on, Dawn."

Dawn's internal organs began to liquefy. First the appendix, and then one of the kidneys. The second kidney went. Then more... and more... veins visibly collapsed beneath her skin, and the blue pigmentation began to spread across her body in large swaths.

A red light sprang up around Willow and Jenny as they continued their spell, power gathering around them. The Doctors were no longer struggling to get in now, but simply stared with wide eyes and dropped jaws. Jenny and Willow chanted in Latin, their words imploring aid from the primal forces of the universe; the glow around them intensified.

Dawn's body began to emit a crystalline blue light.

"Giles! What's happening?"

Giles had no reply.

The crystalline blue light surged out from Dawn's body like a leaping predator. Willow and Jenny stopped chanting and threw up their arms to shield themselves, and everyone stared in shock. Everyone, that is, except for Cordelia, who, reacting without thinking, darted forward and shoved Willow out of the way. Cordelia and Jenny were utterly enveloped by the terrible crystalline blue aura, and they began to shriek horrible shrieks of agony. And then they began to change. Streaks of blue shot through Cordelia's hair, and then through Jenny's, and swaths of blue pigmentation spread across their skin...

Dawn's eyes opened, and they shone a solid green. "NO!" she screamed desperately, and her body gave off a burst of pure, bright green light, shattering the blue aura around Jenny and Cordelia into a million luminescent shards that were long in fading.

Giles rushed to Jenny's side, and Xander to Cordy's. They were alive.

"Jenny?" Giles asked.

She looked up at him. "Rupert," she whispered. "It hurts."

His breath caught in his throat. Her eyes had changed; they were a frozen sort of crystalline blue. Giles wrapped her up in an intense embrace, and Jenny began to sob.

"Buffy!" Angel said warningly.

Buffy looked at Dawn, watching as her transformation continued unchallenged. This was it, then. Their last chance. She met Angel's gaze and nodded. "Do it."

Angel was at Dawn's side in an instant, leaning down, putting his mouth against her neck.

He bit down.

Immediately, Angel gagged and pulled away. A black ichor was leaking from her neck. He looked to Buffy, but she only stared, wide-eyed. He was unsure of what to do for an instant, and then a determined look settled onto his face. She was already at the point of death. All he had to do was introduce vampiric blood into her system. He cut open his own wrist and pressed it to Dawn's lips.

She began to drink.

For a moment, it looked as though it was going to work. Vampiric power did battle with the essence of the old one within her, and for a moment, there was hope.

Then Dawn convulsed violently, striking Angel in the chest. Angel went flying across the room and crashed into the table, shattering it.

Dawn opened her eyes and looked to her horrified mother and sister. "I didn't even get a chance to be real," she whispered, and her voice was filled with regret. "I love y..." again she convulsed, and screamed, and then lay still, dead. Her eyes seemed to freeze over, and she drew breath.

"Dawn?" Buffy asked, just daring to hope.

Joyce stared at the thing that used to be her daughter, her eyes wide.

"Dawn?" Buffy asked again.

Illyria sat up "YOU!" she said, staring at her new body in the mirror on the far wall, surprise evident in her tone. "You were hiding in this mortal carcass?" She opened her hand, and a large, bright sphere of beautiful green energy appeared above it, pulsing with life. Illyria listened as the sphere pulsed. "Glorificus?" she sneered, "A mewling worm no better than the wretched slime that spawned her." Illyria looked to the assembled humans, and briefly her imperious gaze fell upon those who had been partially corrupted by her power. "So be it," she intoned, and closed her fist around the sphere of green light. The sphere winked out, and a green glow suffused Illyria's body before fading away slowly

"Dawnie?" Buffy asked a third time, feeling a sick sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

"That's not Dawn," Xander said, his expression filled with horror.

Funny thing about death. Everyone denies it. Nobody really believes that it will happen to them. Not me, surely not me. We all try to fight it. Some risk their souls to stave it off. Some finally accept it as inevitable, and some linger on until old age and infirmity have robbed them of the very things that make their lives worth living. For Dawn Summers, death had come, and nothing anyone could do would stop it. The shockwaves of that death spread forward through the timeline, infecting the entity that had once been Dawn Summers with Illyria, from the moment of Illyria's awakening within the shadow that Dawn cast through history all the way into the far distant future, and onwards into the past through The Key. Paradox roiled about the very fabric of Space/Time, and entire futures were obliterated in an instant.

Death had claimed Dawn Summers. Death, and worse.

Illyria rose to her feet, and strode imperiously out of the hospital room, and there was silence in Heaven.

END PART FIVE


	7. Destination Unknown

Blue Dawn  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer YAHF  
by P.H. Wise

Epilogue: Destination Unknown

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby, and belongs to Mutant Enemy. I am not Joss Whedon. No copyright infringement is intended; please don't sue me. I'm not making any money off of this.

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There was no formal funeral for Dawn Summers. Her body was still ambulatory, and that made a coroner's report a tricky matter. Even so, Giles had volunteered to hold a private ceremony. It was done in the Summers's back yard: nothing extravagant, just a short ritual that had been passed down from generation to generation of Watchers.

On the day of the ceremony, Cordelia Chase was hunched over the bathroom sink, trying her very hardest not to cry. Every time she looked in the mirror, she was reminded of the... changes she had undergone. Of the price she had paid for pushing Willow out of the way. If she hadn't... if only she hadn't... but then Willow would be going through this right now. She wiped her eyes furiously. She shouldn't have saved Willow. She didn't even like Willow. She didn't even... she was crying again.

There came a knock at the door.

She ignored it, wishing desperately that it would just go away. That she would wake up safe in her bed and that yesterday would have been a bad dream. Buffy's little sister wouldn't be dead, her body wouldn't be walking around calling itself Illyria, and she wouldn't be so. damn. blue.

The knock came again, and she glared at the door.

"Cordy, it's me."

Xander. Xander Harris. Probably the worst mistake she had ever made. Xander fucking Harris. "Go away," she said, but her heart wasn't in it.

He opened the door – it hadn't been locked, and came in, his expression a gentle one. "You ok?" he asked. What kind of question was that? Of course she wasn't OK!

"Of course I'm not OK," she hissed at him, trying very hard to ignore the blue tinged black hair that she could see even now at the edge of her peripheral vision. "Look at me! I'm a Smurf! My social life is over!"

He smiled faintly. "Yeah, but at least you're a pretty Smurf."

"Don't you try to make light of this, Xander Harris. How am I supposed to become an actress now?"

"Lots and lots of creatively applied makeup?"

"Funny. What do you think I've been applying all morning? It isn't doing any good. It just goes right in and vanishes like it's not even there."

"Isn't that what makeup is supposed to do?"

"Not like this, you idiot!" Her bloodshot frozen blue eyes met his. When she spoke again, the fire had gone out of her voice. "What are we going to do now?" she asked. She felt lost and alone.

He embraced her, and she smiled ever so faintly through her tears. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I was thinking we'd go outside and do Dawn's memorial. Everyone's waiting."

Ok, not alone.

With his arm around her shoulder, and hers around his waist, Xander and Cordelia left the house.

But even as they walked out, and she saw the Scoobies assembled there – Buffy and Joyce all in black, their faces masks of sorrow, Willow looking positively haunted, Giles's face totally unreadable, and Jenny Calendar, the one who shared Cordelia's condition, looking ... hollow. She felt hollow, too. Jenny's thoughts were always there, now, like muted whispering at the edge of her awareness – Cordelia suddenly felt a presence in the back of her mind, both ancient and terrible. And then she could swear she heard Dawn's voice, cold and pitiless as the Arctic winter, but Dawn's voice nonetheless, saying, "You will do." A phrase rose unbidden in her mind, then, though she knew not what it meant: Qwa'ha Xahn.

Cordelia shivered. No, whatever else she was, she wasn't alone any longer.

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And far away, in his cave at the entrance to the Deeper Well, Drogyn the Battlebrand frowned deeply as he studied Illyria's sarcophagus. He had just confirmed it; Illyria was still within. So why was he sensing her presence to the west...? A determined look settled onto his face, and he rose to his feet, took up his sword, and left the Deeper Well in the care of his assistants.

He would do what he had to.

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And at last, at long last, in a lavish mansion on the eastern coast of the United States, Glory stiffened suddenly and looked westward. Was that... but it couldn't possibly be... it was! Her Key was there, somewhere to the west.

She smiled widely. "Jinx! Murk!" she called, "Start packing. We're going on a little trip!"

THE END

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Author's notes: And that is that. There's more to tell here, obviously, but that's going to have to wait for the sequel.


End file.
